CHAPTER III 



THE ELEPHANT 



A CENTUBY ago the African elephant extended 

 his dominion over almost the whole of the con- 

 tinent south of the vast desert expanses of its 

 northern extremity ; whilst, in the days of the 

 Carthaginians, it was found within measurable 

 distance of the Mediterranean coasts, and cap- 

 tured and utUised by that enterprising and war- 

 like people. Did we seek to trace this mighty 

 pachyderm still farther back into prehistoric 

 times, we should find, on the solemn word of some 

 of our greatest scientists, that it existed beyond 

 question in Spain and Sicily, as doubtless in other 

 portions of the continent of Europe. But the 

 unquestioned ancestor of the elephant of our day 

 must in nowise be confused with the mastodon or 

 mammoth — ^those gigantic forms which are said 

 to have occurred at no great distance of time before 

 the historic period ; whose remains, in a perfectly 

 preserved state, have been found in the frozen 

 river gravels and " silt " of Northern Siberia, 

 and whose mighty tusks, of which many are even 

 now in existence, were fashioned into drinking 

 cups by the cave-dwellers of France. That 

 greatest of aU living students of these matters. 

 Sir Ray Lankester, assures us, on the contrary, 

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